Ascension

What if we are the early church?

We don’t usually think that way. After all, 2000 years is a long time. We think that the early church is the church we encounter in the Book of Acts, that small band of disciples that is entrusted with Jesus’ mission in our first reading today. We don’t think of ourselves as early church. After all, we’ve got a lot of history, we’ve got structures, the world has changed. We’re the old church, the mature church, the institutional church, sometimes even the tired church.

But in a talk I heard recently by Sam Wells, he encouraged us to change our thinking. What if we are the early church? We tend to think that we are at the end of something. But what if we are just at the beginning? What if we’re the ones still figuring things out? What if we’re the ones still asking questions in the wake of Jesus’ ascension that we read about today? What if we’re the ones who have been entrusted with Jesus’ mission to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth? What if we’re the ones who have been given the promise of the Holy Spirit? What if we’re the ones standing looking up towards heaven, not sure what to do next, who have to be reminded that our focus needs to be outward, not upward?

The Ascension of Jesus is a turning point. It’s transformational. You could say that it’s the birthday of the early church. Because it’s about succession. Taking up the mantle, passing the baton.

We’re not always good at succession. Some of you may have seen the HBO Show called Succession. It’s about a wealthy, dysfunctional family having to deal with the looming death of the patriarch who owns a media conglomerate. The children scheme and fight, the father clings to power and manipulates. It’s about power, politics and money, it’s about who will have control. Successions are risky, often they don’t go as planned. But there’s a succession taking place in our first reading today, which, on the face of it, also seems quite risky.

We’re at the very beginning of the Acts of the Apostles. There’s a succession happening and it takes the disciples by surprise. They follow their leader, Jesus, newly raised from the dead, up the Mount of Olives to Bethany, expecting that he’s about to lead them into a new phase of the mission.

“Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”

In response Jesus tells them, “that’s not for you to know, you’ve got another mission”. Then, he leaves them. Jesus is lifted up right in front of their eyes and a cloud takes him out of sight.

But not before Jesus does two things. First, he makes them a promise. And then, he entrusts his God-given mission, newly expanded to include the whole world, to them.

The promise is that they will receive the Holy Spirit, soon, not many days from now.

“You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.”

And then he turns his followers into leaders, entrusting his mission and its expansion on to them:

“You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Over to you, folks. Big job ahead. And with that, he disappears.

It’s all rather sudden. No wonder the disciples are just left standing there, staring up towards heaven. It’s a turning point, something new is happening. Jesus’ mission to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God had been about going to Jerusalem. Now the disciples are told that they’ll be heading out from Jerusalem, to Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth. The mission has entered a new phase, it’s expansive, it’s inclusive and it’s outward focused. But most importantly, it will be guided and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

The ascension of Jesus makes way for the Holy Spirit. That’s the promise, that’s the biggest change that’s about to happen. The disciples will be baptized in the Holy Spirit, they will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon them. It will happen, soon, not many days from now.

Until then, however, you are to wait.

It strikes me as significant that the first act of the early church, right after the mission of Jesus has been entrusted to them, is to wait. You’d think that they might want to go and do something, after all they have work to do. But they’re not ready yet. Don’t act, Jesus tells them, until you are equipped, empowered by the Holy Spirit. And so they return home, and wait and pray for the Spirit to come.

For unless the church is led by and empowered by the Spirit, it is not really the church. Unless the church is led by and empowered by the Spirit, it won’t be able to carry out the mission that God has entrusted to it. So, they wait. And ten days later, when they are all together in one place, there comes a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it fills the entire house where they are sitting. Divided tongues like fire appear among them and rest on each of them. And all of them are filled with the Holy Spirit.

We’ll celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit next Sunday, on the day of Pentecost.

For now, let’s return to the question I began with. What if we are the early church?

What if we are the ones who have been given the promise of the Holy Spirit and entrusted with the mission to be Jesus’ witnesses to the ends of the earth? To be witnesses of God’s love for all people, as it was made known to us in Jesus? How are we to proclaim the good news in our time and place?

As we think about that, I think we understand a bit better why when Jesus ascended, the disciples just stood there gazing up into heaven. Because the mission we’ve been entrusted with seems so big that it’s overwhelming at times. Maybe if we stare at heaven long enough Jesus will reappear and give us a few more details on what we should do.

Because, after all, we like doing things. We like to be busy, to stay active. Churches like ours are beehives of activity. But the one thing that the Jesus told the early church was not to do anything until they were empowered by the Holy Spirit. Until then, wait and pray.

Because a church that does things that are not empowered by the Spirit is just kind of thrashing around. We have work to do, we have a mission to get on with, no question about that, but if we are not led by the Spirit, then who knows if we’ll go in the right direction.

The book of Acts is all about the early church, in the wake of Pentecost, being led by the Spirit. And the Spirit’s leadership creates no end of surprise, disturbance and the shattering of expectations for the early church.

What if we are the early church?

What if we are the ones who are to receive the Holy Spirit and go into the world proclaiming the good news that the kingdom of God is at hand?

What does it mean to receive the Spirit? To be led by the Spirit? To be empowered by the Spirit? Will we be surprised?

Well, one of the nice things about thinking of ourselves as the early church is that we can admit to ourselves that we’re still trying to figure it out. What does it mean to be baptized with the Holy Spirit? What does that feel like? Sometimes we see things and we can say to ourselves ‘yes, that’s the Spirit at work.’ Other times we ask ourselves, ‘where is God in this?’ We won’t always get it right, the church in Acts didn’t always get it right. We’re going to have questions. But we can always gather together, we can always pray. We pray for the Spirit to be with us, to guide us, to lead us, to empower us, to enable us to carry out the mission that God has given us.

And as we pray, we wait and we listen. And we have faith that God will keep his promise, that he will give us the Holy Spirit, and that we will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon us.

So that we can be a Spirit-led church. So that we can be Jesus’ witnesses.

Jesus has ascended. The mission is now ours. Come, Holy Spirit, come.

Amen.

Homily Ascension, May 12 2024, Trinity

Readings: Acts 1.1-11

Image by mtstudio